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Chapter 2
Soft. Soft.
It was cozy, warm, and enveloping. Even the faint scent, it was something deeply missed, something achingly familiar… Huh?
Only then did he realize something was off.
The pinnacle of dissonance.
It didn’t suit him at all. In twenty years, he hadn’t once slept in a warm room. He lived on battlefields soaked in blood, surviving brutal training and endless cycles of kill-or-be-killed.
‘What’s going on?’
This was an experience too strange to grasp. He had to retrace his steps.
A true martial artist, even in the worst circumstances, must stay calm, analyze themselves, and swiftly read their surroundings.
Through a haze of foggy memories, clarity returned, and with it, the final moments.
‘Huh… I never expected him to self-destruct.’
The decisive battle with the Demonic King, he had thought it was over.
The Demonic King’s demonic energy had been depleted, his demonic body shattered. Even his core energy had been damaged. That alone should’ve made self-detonation impossible.
Yet the Demonic King did the impossible.
In a blaze of glory befitting the Demonic Cult’s leader, the Demonic King detonated. And Mujin was swept away in it.
But he didn’t resent it. Even if he had survived, the human vultures would’ve circled, ready to feast on him the moment his guard dropped.
Those rats, who he could’ve killed with one hand normally, would’ve had the perfect opportunity, defenseless and disarmed as he was. Sure, he could’ve taken one or two down with him, but still…
‘I need to figure out what’s going on.’
One thing was certain: he was alive.
His heart beat. Blood flowed. He was even… hungry.
And that made no sense.
Even if he had miraculously survived a mutual-destruction-level blast, the scavengers wouldn’t have let him go. They would’ve dressed up the event as a heroic tale of the man who killed the Demonic King and saved the continent, only to die in the process.
People had always been good at spinning those tales. A death with glory wasn’t a bad end.
‘I lived like a dog. I should’ve died like one too.’
Mujin opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling.
His gaze traced from ceiling to floor. An ordinary layout, something you’d find anywhere. No clues to tell him where, or when, he was. Which only made it more unsettling.
It was too normal. Too familiar.
A faint ache tugged at his heart. A softness, almost nostalgic, that gnawed at him.
‘Why does this feel so familiar?’
It wasn’t just the room, it was the scent. A scent he hadn’t experienced in forever. Was he getting sentimental from nostalgia? But he wasn’t that kind of man. And he certainly wasn’t at the age to be wallowing in emotions.
To be sentimental at his age… would be downright embarrassing.
He threw off the blanket and sat up.
Rustle.
The blanket slipped smoothly off.
Revealing a flawless, snow-white shoulder, like polished jade. A woman, still bleary-eyed from sleep, turned toward him and pulled him close.
Gasp!
A completely nude woman. Mujin was so shocked, words escaped him.
But that wasn’t even the most shocking part.
“…You?”
Not just familiar. Someone he had yearned for, desperately, painfully.
The one who haunted his thoughts during his most regretful, remorseful days. The woman he’d vowed, time and time again, never to abandon again, if he ever saw her once more.
But… she had died.
The dead don’t come back. Not unless one uses black magic from forbidden sects. And even then, those methods always led to disaster.
Seeing Mujin’s stunned expression, the woman looked worried.
“Honey, are you feeling okay?”
She looked exactly the same as she had in her prime, gentle, radiant, loving.
Despite all the hardship he’d caused her, she had always accepted him with unwavering kindness. And he… he had responded with petulance and rebellion. A textbook example of a prideful, incompetent man.
Mujin’s voice trembled as he barely managed a reply.
He, the bloodless, tearless cold-hearted War King, was trembling.
Who in the world could make the great War King tremble?
“How are you alive?”
“Did you have a nightmare? Or… did you do something again?”
“…Something? What do you mean?”
“If not, that’s fine. I trust you. No matter what others say. I’ll talk to Father for you. You know he can’t say no to me, right? Hehehe.”
“…?”
‘What did I do? Wait—no. This whole situation is the real incident!’
‘How can you be looking at me like that, same as before, when you’re supposed to be dead?’
‘Did I die and ascend to paradise?’
The joy and confusion hit him at once. Life was always unpredictable like this.
‘Wait… could this be some demonic illusion?’
The Demon Cult’s black magic was known to be intense and reality-breaking. Perhaps he was under the spell and didn’t even know it.
‘No. Impossible.’
The War King’s Art was a martial technique that refined not just body and energy, but heart and soul.
It was designed to produce an unshakable mind. Resistance to mental illusions and sorcery was one of its hallmarks.
He had reached the seventh stage out of nine. That level had been enough to defeat the Demonic King.
As long as his War King’s Art was intact, no sorcery should affect him. In fact, it was lethal to users of black magic. That’s exactly how he triumphed over the Demonic King’s tricks.
‘But this seventh stage… huh?’
His body felt different.
Once, he had total control over every muscle and vein. Now it felt dull. Like a rusted blade.
Even his energy, his inner qi, was muddled and sluggish.
What about his cultivation?
The power he had forged through endless war and suffering, it was nearly gone. Practically nothing.
Frankly, he’d seen mouse droppings that were more useful. He had become a husk.
He might as well start over from scratch.
A disgrace.
‘Wait a second… why is my body so clean?’
This body had lived through hellscapes of swords and death. No matter how powerful your martial arts were, you didn’t escape unscarred. You earned your mastery through pain and blood.
His first battlefield had nearly killed him several times.
Like all martial artists, he learned early on, training was theory, battle was reality. You had to temper your techniques in actual combat.
Mujin had mastered martial techniques through combat, refining his War King’s Art. It was after defeating Shinchang, a former top-100 expert, that he truly began to make his name known as the War King.
And this body… is mine?
It was spotless, no scars, no ruggedness. The calluses that had once been ground into his skin, layer by layer, were now as soft and tender as a maiden’s. Fragile.
A disgusting memory suddenly surfaced.
There was once a brat who, sheltered by his sect and born in a greenhouse, had strutted around with arrogance. Mujin crushed him mercilessly. Not only was his current body similar to that brat’s, it looked even weaker.
“Are you saying my body is fragile?”
The body that had endured the Asura Fields was the epitome of ruggedness, forged into what was known as the War King’s Combat Body, a model of manhood.
He recalled a guy who used to worship muscles, saying a real man was defined by them and even begged to call Mujin “Hyung-nim”. That guy was crazy, but refreshing in his own way.
Everything was confusing.
It didn’t feel real… but it wasn’t clearly fake either. Everything was just too vivid. The sights, the scents, the texturesz they were all far too real.
Swish.
Naked, without even a thread on her, she leaned in, peeking out suddenly and approaching him.
Mujin flinched.
Her hand gently cupped his face.
“Are you okay?”
Warm.
Even if all of this was a lie, even if it was a cruel illusion crafted by some demonic sorcery…
‘So what?’
He had longed to see her again. Had ached for it, for what felt like forever. And now here she was.
There was no need for logic or explanation.
Even if it meant falling into a hell of illusion and being used until the end, he didn’t care.
He said something he had never said while she was alive.
Words he should’ve said, then and there.
“…I missed you.”
“Oh my, why is my husband being like this so early in the morning?”
Mujin’s eyes grew red as he embraced her like she might shatter.
He had wronged her so deeply.
He’d given her nothing but hardship. Never offered comfort, only disappointment. And yet, she had never once given up on him.
He would never leave her again.
“I’m never leaving you again!”
“Were you thinking of going somewhere?”
“Go? No way in hell. I’m staying right here, right beside you. I’m not leaving again, ever!”
“You’re tickling me, honey.”
Mujin held her tight, releasing the pure longing he had bottled up for twenty years. His hands were rough from having been untouched by a woman for so long, but she received him gently, bringing them together in harmony.
Endless ecstasy!
Mujin had no regrets.
‘This is heaven.’
And someone else agreed.
-Nod, nod.
***
Woof!
The noisy morning passed, and 1 hour had gone by.
Mujin still hadn’t wiped the dazed expression off his face, as though lost in a dream. He thought it was a dream, but this was something else entirely. Her eyes, her skin, her scent, the familiar rhythm of her breath, all of it vividly evoked the past.
She was good to him.
Mature, wise—even so…
“She’s young.”
And she wasn’t the only one who’d gotten younger.
A glance in the mirror revealed that even he had returned to his younger self. Back to the days when he was still a reckless fool, branded a scoundrel.
“This… is me?”
Back then, he had been the eldest son of the Songho Sect, positioned as the next heir.
Songho Sect was a medium-sized martial clan based in Cheongyang, northeast of Anhui Province. While it didn’t boast ancient roots, it was a respected local power that had long held ground in the region.
However, its influence had started to wane after the rise of Lofty Mountain Sect, a force under the Black Dragon Castle Alliance, part of the unorthodox sects.
‘It’s been a while, Jinhwagong.’
Jinhwagong was the sect’s foundational technique, focused on cultivating pure qi and strengthening the meridians. It was solid but slow. Advancing to the next level was painstaking, and only a handful in the sect’s history had mastered it fully.
At the time, Mujin had only cultivated Jinhwagong to the third stage.
Even with all the elixirs he’d consumed, his cultivation speed had remained disappointing. For a firstborn son and supposed heir, it was barely passable.
Considering how much of the clan’s resources he’d burned, people calling him a “useless waste” wouldn’t have been wrong. Had they invested those resources elsewhere, it would’ve returned more value.
Frankly, he was no better than the average outer disciple. And yet, his temper was foul, and his pride overflowed.
A classic case of a petty man, no skill, just attitude.
Still, it made sense.
When you had no power, all you could do was inflate your ego.
‘I was just full of hot air.’
He’d once told himself he’d become a martial legend who ruled the entire continent. Which, put nicely, was a grand ambition, but in truth, it was just empty bravado.
‘That was such a stupid move.’
He’d recklessly set out in search of one of the Three Great Martial Treasures, which at the time had thrown the entire martial world into chaos.
He saw it as a glorious journey. His family likely thought he’d just run away from home. Normally, he should’ve gotten beaten up and crawled back, but fate had other plans.
Call it good luck, or bad.
With no plan, he set out, and somehow, he found it. When the legendary treasure appeared before him, he lost control. Afraid someone might steal it, he tried to take it all for himself.
Had he known he’d be trapped for years, he never would’ve reached for it.
He did become the strongest, but what was the point if he lost everything else? Becoming invincible was meaningless when there was no one left to see it. It was just ego. And even that didn’t last. The regret far outweighed the fleeting pride.
And that regret had only grown with time.
A life consumed by remorse.
And now… he had returned.
“Keuh… hahahahahahaha!”
Laughter burst out of him uncontrollably.
The inexhaustible internal energy that had once reached the seventh level, and the body that rivaled Vajra Steel—were gone. The martial arts he’d spent his life perfecting as a warrior had vanished.
And still, Mujin couldn’t stop laughing.
“I don’t need any of that!”
He could learn martial arts again. He was confident he could replenish his qi as much as needed.
He’d walked that road once already. Even if he took it slow, his pace would still outstrip any ordinary person by miles.
-Hahahahahahahahaha!
For the first time in forever… he genuinely felt good.
---The End Of The Chapter---
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